The Bransfield class was the culmination of the 'light' cruisers using the single hull design and adapting it to the differing armaments from 1905 to 1918. The hull had been easy to produce and during time of war for the Bransfield and Bjaaland classes this made it almost 'production line' standards to get the ships to sea. The final generation of the type took the final step with the armament going from the mixture of a turret forward with single mountings aft, to three twin turrets, one forward and two aft. The simple rangefinder was replaced with a gun director and 3" AA guns were fitted from new. The 3" replaced the low angle 4" that had been fitted to previous classes. The twin 18" torpedoes were upgraded to triple 21" mountings, the rangefinder controller for these was mounted on the aft bridge house..



The size and length of the classes had slowly increased from 3,900 tons and 436 feet, to, 4,500 tons and 454 feet. The last increase in length was made to enlarge the size of the fuel tanks to increase the range by20%. None of the class was lost during the World War One. With the completion of the Gerlache class in 1923, the class was split into three with a Gerlache and four Bjaaland ships to make up a squadron. 1937 and the class was slowly refitted to become AA cruisers. The old, slow firing, 6" weapons being replaced with modern dual purpose 5". The three turrets being replaced on a one for one basis. Originally the ships had been armed with 2 pounder AA guns and 20mm for the light AA armament. This was replaced with a uniform armament of 40mm weapons from 1942. The single 3" had been replaced by the quad 2 pounder mountings.



Later destroyers had the same 6x5" armament, but had only half the 40mm fitted to these ships. Where the space of the light cruiser counted. Antarctica started the war with all twelve of these ships in service. Two were lost in the first six weeks. Antarctica, mistakenly, thought that it would be possible to blockade the enemy submarines in their ports. Aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers were deployed on this duty. Land aircraft and submarines sank one aircraft carrier, crippled a battleship, sank three cruisers and two destroyers before the fleet was withdrawn. An expensive lesson, never to be repeated. The only thing achieved during this time was the sinking of two submarine depot ships, two submarines (alongside the depot ships) and some miscellaneous vessels in the harbour. A resounding defeat. The idea had been that the aircraft from the carriers would be able to protect the fleet from the land aircraft, detect the submarines and vector the destroyers onto the submarines. There the destroyers would detect the submarine with Asdic and sink it with depth charges. What actually happened was that the land aircraft overwhelmed the fleets aircraft which were unable to run the ASW missions. The submarines broke through the destroyer formation with only a 50/50 chance of detection when the submarines then had a field day firing torpedoes at the fleet. The two Bjaaland class cruisers were lost putting themselves in front of shoals of torpedoes meant for the carrier behind them. The remaining ten ships went to escort Command and took their turns being paired with the McLintock class escort carriers and fighting the convoys through. 1943 and the submarines instituted a new tactic - get the escorts first. Three of the class were lost - going down by the stern, having had their sterns blown off by the new acoustic torpedo.

 

Displacement	4,500 tons standard, 5,000 tons full load
Length	454 ft
Breadth	46 ft
Draught	17 ft
Machinery	4 shaft, steam turbines, 40,000ihp
Speed	30 knots
Range	6,000 miles at 10 knots
Armour	3" side, 2" deck
Armament	As completed 6 x 6" (3x2) 3 x 3" AA (3x1) 4 x 2pd AA (4x1)	Refits to 1942 6 x 5" (3x2) 16 x 40mm (2x4, 4x2)
Torpedoes	6 x 21" (2x3)	nil (removed 1942)
Complement	455	477
Notes	Brigadier Bjaaland - Colonel Hayward - Lieutenant Lodge - Senator Townshend - Brigadier Bachman - Colonel Cummings - Brigadier Bowie - Colonel Carpenter - Major Joel - General Godley - Colonel Creme - Sergeant Major Gouldman -

3" AA gun used on most ships as the AA weapon in WW1.